RESOURCES FOR CHILDREN & ADULTS REGARDING TRANSPLANTATION

The following is a (by far incomplete!) list of some of the vast amount of materials available for both children and adults who may be facing transplantation of various organs.

There are childrens' books written by the children who have experienced transplantation, or witnessed a loved one going through it. Juvenile. Comics. Humor. There are resource manuals for adults. Numerous website. Fiction and non-fiction.

I have categorized it in an attempt to simplify your search.

Best wishes.

HELPFUL BOOKS, JOURNALS, WEBSITES

BOOKS

Children’s

• Pennies, Nickels and Dimes, Elizabeth Murphy-Melas, Anthony Pouncey

• Precious Gifts: Katie Coolican’s Story, Barklay and Eve Explain Organ Donation, Karen L. Carney

• Now Caitlin Can: A donated organ helps a child get well, Ramona Wood

• Dorien’s New Liver, Beatrix Kinderkliniek

• Lizzie Gets a New Liver, Lizzy Ribal, Beth Basham, Patricia Ritter McCracken

English: The restored scene from Dr Barnard’s first human heart transplantation – world’s most famous heart of young donor Denise Duval just died…. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Juvenile

• There’s a Little Bit of Me in Jamey, Diana M. Amadeo

Young Adult

• Pig-Heart Boy, Malorie Blackman (shortlisted for Carnegie Medal)

• Stealing Kevin’s Heart, M. Scott Carter

• The Bower Bird, Ann Kelley

• She Died Too Young (One Last Wish), Lurlene McDaniel

• Heart Transplant, Andrew Vachss (Bullies) (featured in PW)

• Organ Transplants: A Survival Guide for the Entire Family, Tina P Schwartz

Autobiographies/Biographies/Memoirs

• Gary Coleman, Medical Miracle, Bill Davidson

• Baby James: A Legacy of Love and Family Courage, Thos Kent Miller

• To the Edge and Back: My Story from Organ Transplant Survivor to Olympic Snowboarder, Chris Klug, Steven J. Jackson

• A Transplant for Katy, Luis Fabregas

• Christiaan Barnard: One Life, Christiaan Barnard, Curtis Bill Pepper

• Or You Can Let Him Go by Kathryn Seidick (featured in NYTimes, endorsed by Nora Roberts)

• Chronically Happy: Joyful Living in Spite of Chronic Illness by Lori Hartwell

• Larry’s Kidney: Being the True Story of How I Found Myself in China with My Black Sheep Cousin and His Mail-Order Bride, Skirting the Law to Get Him a Transplant–and Save His Life , Daniel Asa Rose

• Face to Face: My Quest to Perform the First Full Face Transplant by Maria Z. Siemionow

• Every Second Counts: The Race to Transplant the First Human Heart
  by Donald McRae

• Heart of Iron: My Journey from Transplant Patient to Ironman Triathlete
  by Kyle Garlett

Other NF

• Transplant: From Myth to Reality, Nicholas L. Tilney

• A History of Organ Transplantation: Ancient Legends to Modern Practice, David Hamilton

• Artificial Organs (New Techniques in Surgery Series) by Nadey S. Hakim NF

• On the List: Fixing America’s Failing Organ Transplant System, Steve Farber, Harlan Abrahams

• Last Best Gifts: Altruism and the Market for Human Blood and Organs, Kieran Healy

• Coping with an Organ Transplant: A Practical Guide, Elizabeth Parr, Janet Mize

• Raising the Dead: Organ Transplants, Ethics, and Society by Ronald Munson NF

• Matching Organs with Donors: Legality and Kinship in Transplants, Marie-Andree Jacob

• Kidney for Sale by Owner: Human Organs, Transplantation, and the Market, Mark Cherry

• Pediatric Solid Organ Transplantation, Derdre Kelly, Kim Olthoff, Steven Webber

Journals

• Heart transplantation / International Society for Heart Transplantation

• The Journal of heart and lung transplantation : the official publication of the International Society for Heart Transplantation

 

Websites

http://organdonor.gov/materialsresources/materialsntlevents.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23274332

http://livingdonorsarepeopletoo.com/

http://organdonor.gov/about/data.html

http://donatelife.net/understanding-donation/

http://www.rsnhope.org/

http://www.classkids.org/just-for-kids.html

HONORING, REMEMBERING, ENCOURGING

April 19 is National Blue & Green Day. What does this mean, you ask? It's your opportunity to "give HOPE to the more than 117,000 people on the organ transplant waiting list; HONOR organ, eye and tissue donors;
REMEMBER those that died waiting for their second chance at life; and CELEBRATE the
patients who received the gift of life through transplantation."

You might not realize it at first thought, but chance are good that you know someone first or second or third hand that has had a transplant or is need of one. And there may come a day that you - yes, you - may be in need of one yourself. 

According to the Donate Life America site:

Statistics

Currently, nearly 120,000 men, women and children are awaiting organ transplants in the United States. For specific numbers visit unos.org
65,991 Multicultural Patients*
1,760 Pediatric Patients*
28,052 Organ Transplants Performed in 2011
14,013 Organ Donors in 2012
More than 46,000 corneas were transplanted in 2012
More than 1 million tissue transplants are done each year and the surgical need for tissue has been steadily rising
*as of March 2013

 Even if you keep your body healthy and keep the toxins out, life has a way of changing your circumstances.

Please think about those wonderful, selfless people who have donated in either life or death as well as those people who have so gratefully received those needed transplants to save or greatly improve their lives and have fun on April 19th: Have a blue & green party! Make a blue & green cake! Wear blue & green!

Thank you, organ donors and families who have made it possible for myself and others like me to live our lives fully.